Whitening - is it possible?

[Fabapocalypse]

Hi all, my first posting so please be gentle with me!

I was a terrible nail-biter for years but am pleased to say that I have been "clean" for the last seven years and have been making a real effort to look after my nails.

They still sometimes get a little weak and I have the odd problem with peeling, but polished up they don't look too bad now... but when they're "naked" it's a different story.

My nails look a little odd - I think the years of biting have had the effect of "pulling away" the free edge from the plate, so that I have a relatively short "pink bit" and a relatively long "white bit". This is slowly improving as the years go by and they still look a heck of a lot better than when they were gnawed nubs, so I can live with that, but: they are also yellow...

I religiously use good quality basecoat and polishes (OPI, China Glaze, Nails Inc) but they are still yellow! I have tried a couple of high street whitening tablet things, without any improvement, and something called Orly Cutique, a cuticle-cum-stain-remover which has helped a little but not much. I haven't bothered with the various lemon juice/toothpaste theories you hear about as they don't sound effective enough and I'm a little lairy of using anything with hydrogen peroxide in on myself.

I would love to be able to wear more sheer polishes and maybe French but constantly keep my nails covered with more opaque polish.

I enjoy having salon treatments but like a lot of people am on a limited budget so must choose carefully; is there anything out there which would help my nails look cleaner and healthier again (and give me a bit of a pamper into the bargain)?

Many thanks for any help!

 

[Fabapocalypse]

Anyone?

Is there a salon treatment available I can ask for at my next appointment to take the yellow out?

 

[HWilliams]

Anyone?

Is there a salon treatment available I can ask for at my next appointment to take the yellow out?

You can get Nail Whitening products. Rimmel do a Nail Whitening pencil and there are Nail Whitening Scrubs available online

H x

 

[Fabapocalypse]

I have staining to the whole nail, though, even with the use of good base coats - the whitening pencils don't do a lot for that (or stay in place very long!). I've also tried paint-on optical brighteners but they tend to make things look a bit blue and odd, but they don't remove stains and don't give the same staying power when used as a base coat as the purpose made ones

Are the scrubs any more effective than the fizzy tablet ones you can get from Superdrug and the like, do you know?

Must admit I've never been offered whitening as a salon treatment, so I did wonder. But the yellowing is something I feel a bit self conscious about so was kind of hoping!